Final Word

By Jeff Girod

Fanciful gift baskets, Vermont teddy bears, stinky cheese-of-the-month clubs—these are all great ways to weasel back into someone’s good graces.

Not a good way to earn brownie points? Taking the most painful, vulnerable instance of a person’s life and publishing it in People magazine.

That’s exactly what Stewart did to Robert Pattinson, her Twilight saga costar and boyfriend of three years, after she was caught mashing faces with Rupert Sanders, Stewart’s director on her latest film, Snow White and the Huntsman.

Instead of a private phone call and a “my bad” to Pattinson, Stewart went running to People:

“I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and embarrassment I’ve caused to those close to me and everyone this has affected,” Stewart shared in a written statement with the celebrity gossip magazine. “This momentary indiscretion has jeopardized the most important thing in my life, the person I love and respect the most, Rob. I love him, I love him, I’m so sorry.”

By comparison, this makes a 2 a.m. drunk dial look like a wise investment decision.

OK, first tipoff that Stewart’s statement was made by a crazy person: She repeats the phrase “I love him . . . I love him.” See, crazy people repeat themselves. A lot. It’s the only way they can make themselves heard over the other 47 voices inside their screwy heads.

Also, Kristen Stewart released her statement to People magazine? Were Cracked and Tiger Beat not available? Because nothing says you’re serious about making responsible amends to someone you cherish than blabbing it to a magazine that features “before” and “after” weight loss stories, weekly crosswords and a picture puzzler.

The first 20 times I heard about Twilight I thought it was a pill for erections or hair growth. And if you haven’t seen Twilight, erections and hair growth are both essential to its plot.

I have actually watched roughly two-thirds of the Twilight movies in one afternoon on Starz! It’s also the same afternoon I regrettably chose to eat an entire extra-large meat lover’s pizza by myself. And if you asked me what I learned by watching seven consecutive hours of Twilight, it’s this: Make sure you’re within arm’s reach of the TV remote before falling into a paralytic pizza coma.

But I also saw a lot of Kristen Stewart during my pepperoni haze and she has as much personality as a rake. Or maybe that’s just the roles she plays: Vitamin-D deficient wet blankets who fear sunlight, standing up straight and not frowning. I mean, why wouldn’t Robert Pattinson be into that, other than the fact that she apparently makes out with married guys in front of anyone holding a telephoto lens?

I don’t know much about jilted Hollywood hookups, but I know plenty about regrettable public humiliations. (I had an awkward puberty that lasted well into my 30s—OK, it was more like last Wednesday.) And the one piece of sage advice I could pass along to Stewart is that when you’re standing in the middle of a raging wildfire, the last thing you should do is pour buckets of gasoline on yourself while wearing an ass-less suit made of bacon.

Apologies should be kept between two people, especially when the thing you’re apologizing for is going to make things worse, will further injure an innocent person and particularly if 99 percent of us never cared that you did the awful thing in the first place.

It’s the reason I try to live life without apologizing for anything: I can’t take the risk I might inadvertently offend or embarrass that special someone—or anyone else for that matter. Call it unintended collateral damage. And I’m just too compassionate and warmhearted to potentially ruin anyone’s life/day/moment/Caesar salad with an apology.

It’s a liberating feeling: caring so much about the entire world’s feelings that I force myself not to think about anybody but myself. It’s a constant struggle. But what can I say? I’m a better person than Kristen Stewart.

To Pattinson’s credit, he recently kicked his now ex-girlfriend out of his $6.2 million Los Angeles home, according to—who else?—People magazine.